This application relates to a curtain-sided vehicle such as described in U.S. Letters Pat. Nos. 3,709,552 and 4,545,611. Curtain-sided vehicles combine some of the advantages of a flatbed trailer with those of an enclosed or slab-sided trailer. A flatbed trailer or truck body offers the advantages of easy cargo accessibility and more efficient loading and unloading. However, to protect a load from weather conditions such as rain and snow, a tarp must be placed over the load and securely tied down. This consumes time and adds to the expense of moving a load. A slab-sided trailer or truck body offers the advantage of weather protection but sacrifices the convenience of side-loading and unloading. Slab-sided vehicles are normally loaded from the rear wherein the front cargo is loaded first and the rear cargo is loaded last. It is difficult to load containerized cargo of any length, in this manner. Containerized cargo is normally loaded on a flatbed trailer which offers no weather protection unless a tarp is placed over the containers. Curtain-sided vehicles such as the one described in the 552' patent offer weather protection as well as the convenience of side-loading. In the vehicle disclosed in the 552' patent, a curtain pole is attached to a curtain and the curtain and pole are secured to the rear of the trailer. The tensioning device at the front of the vehicle is then used to tension the curtain horizontally and a set of vertical straps are secured to the bed of the trailer to provide load security as well as vertical tension. If access to the load is necessary, the front tensioning device is released, all the vertical straps are released and the curtain is pulled back to the point where the load is to be accessed. Overall, this procedure is more efficient than the procedure used to load and unload ordinary slab-sided vehicles. However, an unnecessary amount of time and effort is consumed in accessing a load near the center of the vehicle since the front tensioning device and vertical straps must be released before the curtain can be pushed away from where it is secured at the rear of the vehicle. The manner in which the present invention deals with such problems of the prior art will by understood as this description proceeds.